Sunday night’s Emmy Awards ceremony tipped its hand early by tapping left-wing Late Show host Stephen Colbert to host its program. Anyone who has seen any of his Late Show programs over the past year could have predicted that his opening monologue would be a vicious attack on President Trump. The Emmys are handed out for superior performances on television, and much like the Oscar awards ceremonies for movie performances, they provide a platform to promote a progressive worldview.
Expecting such, much of Middle America tuned out, resulting in the worst viewer ratings ever, tied with last year’s dismal numbers. The 2016 show was down five percent over 2015, which had been the previous record low.
Those who expected a steady attack on Trump were correct, as Colbert accused the president of treason — in the first minutes of the program.
Well-known left-wing actor Alec Baldwin received an award as Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his performances as President Trump on Saturday Night Live. Referencing Trump, who himself was nominated multiple times for an Emmy for Celebrity Apprentice, but never won, Baldwin joked, “I suppose I should say at long last, Mr. President, here is your Emmy.”
Colbert joked that Trump should have won an Emmy, because, he said, “I thought you guys loved morally compromised anti-heroes.” He then asserted that had Trump actually won an Emmy, perhaps he would have never even run for president.
Using the acting awards shows, such as the Oscars for motion pictures, and Emmys for television, as a platform for liberal political statements is nothing new; only now it has become almost a parody of itself. Today every leftist statement is met with thunderous applause in what amounts to the classic “preaching to the choir.”
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This was not always the case, however. Back in 1973, Marlon Brando boycotted the Oscars and refused to accept the award for best acting performance as Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. Why? Brando sent a Native American Indian activist, Sacheen Littlefeather, onto the stage to tell the stunned audience that he was boycotting the entire ceremony so as to protest what he considered the poor treatment of American Indians in movies over the years. Drawing boos, mixed with applause, Littlefeather said that Brando “very regretfully cannot accept this generous award, the reasons for this being … the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry and on television in movie reruns.”
Today, booing leftist comments made from the stage at the Emmys or the Oscars could doom the career of an actor, director, writer, or producer.
Liberal statements at the Emmys were not limited to negative remarks about Trump. One winner, Kate McKinnon, praised Hillary Cllinton, while Allison Janney brought up so-called global warming.
Although the ratings for the Emmy Awards show continue to decline, it is doubtful we can expect any changes from either television or the motion-picture industry. While the awards programs are drawing fewer and fewer viewers, the progressive worldview is promoted on a consistent basis both in movies and on television. Baldwin addressed this very issue in his remarks. While few can recall a bill passed by Congress, he said, “You remember a song. You remember a line from a movie. You remember a play, you remember a book, a painting, a poem. What we do is important … don’t stop what you’re doing. The audience is counting on you.”
While constitutionalists rightfully disagree with the political positions of Baldwin and his fellow liberal actors, writers, directors, and producers, he is absolutely correct on this point. For some reason, conservatives have largely neglected advancing their own worldview through the arts, with some notable exceptions. When a movie is made today in Hollywood that actually promotes a conservative Christian worldview, it is roundly denounced by Hollywood’s left-wing allies in the media and academia. One example is the attacks launched upon Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.
Writing in the communist newspaper The Daily Worker in 1925, Will Muezenberg explained the importance of the silver screen in advancing the goal of a communist world. Muezenberg was an agent of the Comintern (Communist International), created to spread communist ideology and promote Soviet interests around the world. He asserted about the motion-picture industry, “One of the most pressing tasks confronting the Communist Party in the field of propaganda is the conquest of this supremely important propaganda unit.”
Vladimir Lenin, the first dictator of the Soviet Union, stated that “the motion picture” was the most important art form for spreading communism to other countries. And his successor, the murderous dictator Joseph Stalin, is reported to have predicted he could convert the whole world to communism if he were given control of the American movie industry.
When older conservatives wonder why the Left seems to be winning the hearts and minds of younger Americans, they might tune in to watch some of the movies they see, and some of the TV programs they follow, and find their answer — even if the award shows are losing more viewers every year.
Photo: AP Images
